The Price of Healing
by MissBates
Summary: Wilson's reaction to a cancer patient's unexpected survival makes House suspicious. He asks a few questions, but the more he finds out, the less he likes the answers. Written for the sick!Wilson Fall Fling Supernatural!Wilson challenge. Warning: character deaths implied, not a 'happy' fic!
1. Chapter 1

Length: ~ 8 k, 5 Chapters  
Genre: supernatural (kinda a given), friendship  
Characters: House, Wilson, cameo appearances of the team and Cuddy  
Setting: spanning canon  
Rating: general  
Warnings: major character deaths implied! This is not a 'happy' fic!  
Summary: Wilson's reaction to a cancer patient's unexpected survival makes House suspicious. He asks a few questions, but the more he finds out, the less he likes the answers.

Written for the Supernatural!Wilson challenge at sick_wilson's Fall Fling.

Beta'd by menolly_au who was unflappable as usual when I inundated her with a lot of words at extremely short notice (read: no notice whatsoever).

* * *

Chapter 1

If House's car hadn't had a flat that day, maybe he'd never have found out, because then he would have been on his couch watching the ball game instead of sitting on the hood of Wilson's car, waiting for Wilson to pack up for the day and give him a ride home. It was from there that he observed Julie's car pull into PPTH's parking lot with squeaking tires. Julie wasn't the type to wear down a decent set of tires for the sake of a dramatic entry, nor was she likely to pick Wilson up from work when he had a perfectly good car of his own. Julie, Wilson liked to say, was practical-minded. (House personally preferred the term 'self-centred'.)

House hopped off Wilson's car and headed back towards PPTH so as to intersect Julie's path just as she reached the entrance doors.

"Greg," Julie said, scarcely masking her dislike.

"Julie," House replied with a mock bow. "Picking up your significant other for a romantic evening?"

Julie snorted. "Romantic evening! One of his patients took a turn for the worse this week."

That had indeed been the case, to House's considerable irritation. Wilson was no fun when his patients threatened to fizzle out. He flat out refused to be distracted from his duties in order to watch soaps in Coma Patient's room. He ignored pages for consults in the clinic; he sat listlessly in the cafeteria, not even putting up a token protest when House ate up his entire meal; he didn't join House out on the balcony in front of House's office. He wasted massive amounts of time and energy hovering over the patient, holding their hand, monitoring their medication, and reassuring loved ones.

It so happened, however, that House's sources in oncology had informed him of a significant improvement in the patient's condition that very afternoon (which was why House had entertained realistic hopes of being chauffeured to Baker Street). In short, the crisis was resolved (for the moment) and Wilson was free to wine and dine his neglected spouse — if he so wished. House's brain considered and discarded several theories that accounted for Wilson's failure to communicate his patient's current medical status to Julie.

The simplest explanation usually being the correct one, it was fair to assume that Wilson's marital communication deficits were in some way connected to the new paediatrics resident, a well-endowed blonde. House didn't much like Julie, but then, he didn't like _anyone_ Wilson married. Chances were that he wouldn't like Wife #4 any better than Wife #3. As annoying as an unhappily married Wilson was, Wilson in love was ten times worse. It therefore behooved House to preserve Wilson's current marriage.

"There isn't much you can do to help," he said to Julie. "He'll be with the patient monitoring her status until he's sure that there's nothing he can do anymore. I'll stay here and take him home when he's ready to go, if you like." He accompanied his offer with a winning smile for Julie and a mental note to himself to give Wilson hell for screwing around with the paediatrics chick.

"His patient is recovering," Julie stated, striding so rapidly that House was hard put to keep up with her.

Oh, so she knew. Curiouser and curiouser! "And that's a problem because?"

"He'll need me to take him home. . . . Have you never seen him after one of those crash-and-recovery thingies?" Julie asked, tapping her foot impatiently as she waited for the elevator.

House considered her question. In Wilson's specialty, there wasn't much in the way of recovery once the patients had passed a certain point. From there on, it was mostly downhill. Only a handful responded to treatment in unexpected ways. House had heard of a few instances when patients with supposedly terminal cancer had rallied and left the hospital on their own two legs, never to return. He'd never attributed much significance to the rumours, because people in general and oncology staff in particular craved saviour myths; they needed lightning flashes of hope in order to survive the appalling dreariness of daily deaths. Within the oncology department Wilson had a near-mythological status when it came to seemingly hopeless cases. (House suspected that his friend had a better eye for atypical tumours and a happier hand at selecting treatment options than the average oncologist, but whatever.)

Nevertheless, he couldn't remember any instance of Wilson bouncing off the walls of his office, of victory dances, celebratory alcohol binges, or any other signs of Wilsonian cheer after a particularly felicitous case of cancer remission. When those rumours of miraculous cures cropped up, they did so in a contextual vacuum, rather as if Wilson the Saviour wielding a wand of healing co-existed with Wilson the Friend of House, who knew nothing of these goings-on. (Which was why House had never given the rumours much credit.)

Julie interrupted his musings with an aside. "I guess not. I'm sure _I_ wouldn't want you to see me like that."

House lifted a lecherous eyebrow. "You're saying he gets so horny he jumps everything in sight?" Maybe that explained two-point-five broken marriages in the man's life.

"I wish! I'll be lucky if I get any in the near future," Julie muttered, giving up on the elevator and heading for the stairwell. "Nice talking to you, Greg."

House was intrigued. He could count off on the fingers of one hand the number of times Julie had seen fit to pick Wilson up from the hospital and still have fingers left over. And he couldn't _ever_ remember Julie voicing concern over Wilson's state of health or their sex life. Definitely a first there — one that she'd probably regret later, once she realised in front of whom she'd shot her mouth off. He briefly considered following her up the stairs, but after a packed day that had included two hours of clinic duty, climbing stairs wasn't an option. The elevator was dicey; chances were that Wilson and Julie would be on their way down by the time he managed to catch a car going up, so House finally settled on waiting in the lobby.

He'd come to the conclusion that Julie had outmanoeuvred him by taking Wilson out via a side entrance when they finally arrived in the lobby. When the elevator doors opened wide enough to reveal them, House's mouth fell open. Wilson had draped an arm over Julie's shoulders, the seemingly romantic gesture marred by his pale, sweaty face and the heavy list of his body towards Julie. Julie's face was set in a determined mask, her lips a tight line from the strain of practically carrying Wilson out of the elevator.

They stumbled out of the elevator, Julie muttering, "Okay, James, just a few more steps and then we've got it. Come on, you can do it!"

If it wasn't for Wilson's pallor, House would assume that he was badly wasted. House swung into place on Wilson's other side to shield him from curious stares, only to earn an, "Oh no, I thought he'd be gone!" from Julie. He chose not to respond, skipping a half step ahead to hold open the lobby door when they reached it. Once out of sight of the lobby, he grabbed Wilson's free arm and pulled it around his own neck.

"I don't suppose anyone would like to tell me what's going on?" he managed to spit out from between clenched teeth. His leg didn't appreciate having to bear half of Wilson's weight in addition to his own.

Wilson lifted bleary eyes. "Leave it, House."

"You know that isn't likely to happen."

"Flu, okay?" Wilson said, leaning against the car while Julie opened the passenger door. "Be fine once I'm rested."

"Right," House said. He changed tack. "Wanna give me a ride home? My car broke down."

As Julie leaned over Wilson to fix his seat belt, Wilson's head fell back, his eyes closed. He said weakly, "He can —"

"No, he can't," Julie said with force.

"— take my car and bring it back here tomorrow," Wilson continued, ignoring the interruption.

Julie dug into Wilson's coat pocket and pulled out his car keys. She tossed them to House. "Here! You heard him."

"' _Thanks for your help, Greg_ ,'" House mouthed in a falsetto as she rounded the car to the driver's side.

Julie sighed. "Okay, thanks, Greg. Just . . . Just give him some space, will you?" It wasn't really a question. It was more of a prayer that she knew would go unanswered.


	2. Chapter 2

Next day Wilson wasn't at work. Cuddy said something vague about 'a personal day'. Wilson's assistant didn't know anything at all other than that he'd had to cancel all appointments for the day.

"Does he do that often?"

"Do what often?" the assistant asked.

"Take sudden personal days?"

"Oh, this wasn't sudden. He told me three days ago to stop taking new appointments for the day and to look for possibilities to shift the ones he had already. In fact, I was supposed to clear two days because he wasn't sure yet which one he'd need."

So much for sudden-onset flu. Wilson had known he'd crash and he'd known roughly when it would happen. Other than flu, what could have caused Wilson's symptoms? House ransacked Wilson's office, but found nothing that indicated chronic pain, autoimmune diseases, obscure genetic disorders, drug abuse, addiction, mental issues (if you ignored the trophies and teddy bears on his shelves and the posters decorating the walls), etc. Next House hacked Wilson's medical file, but there too nothing explained a predictable health-induced absence. Wilson's health slate was squeaky-clean.

Julie attributed Wilson's present state to his patient's recovery. That made no sense whatsoever, but Julie wasn't exactly an idiot. House pulled the patient file and spent the afternoon studying it while he kept his team busy running useless tests on their own patient. Thirty-two year old Caucasian female with metastatic breast cancer that had gone into remission three years ago, only to return two years later in her bones and brain. Chemo, hormones, and radiation hadn't worked, and after a series of seizures she'd been admitted to the hospital. Wilson's staff had noted each and every symptom meticulously: confusion, loss of bladder control, fluid build-up in the lungs, loss of consciousness. The woman had been dying.

And then, three days ago, the first signs of improvement. Her breathing eased, the fluid build-up receded, and the patient regained consciousness. Brain scans carried out a day ago showed no signs of a tumour.

Wait, what?

House examined the previous brain scans again. And then the bone scans. The latest ones weren't entirely conclusive, but at a stretch House would say that her bones were on the mend.

Next he went to the oncology ward to look at the patient. She was sitting up in her bed, looking wan but happy, surrounded by family — a man and three children roughly between two and eight years old. House hobbled into the nearest doctors' lounge, snagged a lab coat that was hanging on a rack (it was way too small), and returned to the room.

"Hello, I'm Dr Greg House. Dr Wilson asked me to drop by and see how you're doing."

"He's too good," the woman said, giving House a warm smile. "He spent the entire night with me, and half the day yesterday, and he still can't stop caring, can he?"

"Where is he?" the husband asked, aggression masking his worry. "Don't get me wrong, he did a great job, but they told us before that the cancer was gone, and then it came back."

"Did he say it was in remission now?" House asked casually, feeling the patient's pulse. Its beat was strong and regular, her eyes were clear, her skin was pale but moist. She looked very much alive. Weary, but nowhere near death's door.

"Yes, he did. Yesterday," the husband said. "Isn't it?"

"He said I showed no evidence of disease," the woman said. Turning to her husband she said, "He wouldn't lie, Jeff."

"Everyone can make a mistake," Jeff said, not quite meeting her eyes.

"People lie, but the scans don't," House said. "The brain scan is clear. So is the bone scan. I can do another one, though, if you like."

"No," the patient said.

"Yes!" her husband said.

"Scan, it is. I'll schedule you for this afternoon," House said. He rose and left the room. The man, Jeff followed him out, catching up with him at the elevator.

"Dr House! Look, I don't want to seem ungrateful or anything —"

"You are," House tried to cut him off, but the man refused to be cowed.

"— but I'm confused, here. Three years ago they told us that Gillian was cured. Then the cancer returned; okay, we knew that could happen. We went through hell to keep her alive, but a week ago they told us that . . . that there wasn't much of a chance and if there was anyone she wanted to see before she went . . . Anyway, so I called her mom and her brother, and the kids said goodbye . . ."

"Your point?" House asked, wishing the elevator would arrive.

"My point is that if this is a temporary thing, I need to _know_. I can't keep putting my kids through this. I can't get their hopes up only to tell them they need to say goodbye again."

House bounced his cane a couple of times, building up a rhythm to accompany his words. "Remission in metastatic breast cancer is by definition a temporary thing. So if you're talking about the next ten years, I can't reassure you. If you're talking about the next months, you can rest easy."

"Then why'd everyone tell us she was dying?"

"Because she was. She isn't now. Be grateful."

"That isn't an explanation!"

"No. And it makes _me_ unhappy, but it shouldn't bother _you_."

The afternoon scans confirmed the ones of the previous day. The woman had, for all intents and purposes, no visible symptoms or manifestations of cancer. House pored over the sets of scans, tapping a pencil against his teeth. How had that happened and what was the connection to Wilson's 'flu'?

The next morning his team stared at the whiteboard in disbelief.

"Our patient has cancer now?" Chase asked, rubbing his eyes.

"Would you still have a job if he had cancer and you'd neglected to mention this in his patient history?" House countered. "This is _Wilson's_ patient."

Cameron's expression cleared as she stepped up to the whiteboard. "Wilson asked for a consult?"

"Sort of," House said. This case was screaming for a consult, and House was happy to oblige before Wilson even asked for it.

Foreman flicked through the patient file. "House, there's no mystery here. This patient has cancer, metastatic breast cancer. It sucks, but there's nothing we, or Wilson, can do. Let's get back to our patient."

"Apparently there _was_ something Wilson could do, because the woman is on the verge of being released with no evidence of disease."

"You're kidding!" Foreman said.

"Here's the last page of that file," House said, pulling the paper out from under a pile of journals dealing with the latest treatment methods for aggressive cancers.

Chase, sitting closest to House, took it and glanced at it. "Looks like she's out of danger for the moment. And we're bothering about a patient who isn't dying or showing inexplicable symptoms, because . . .?"

House gave Chase a 'duh' look. "A woman who was riddled with metastases a week ago is in remission as of now. That kinda fits my definition of 'inexplicable'."

"Maybe the treatment worked," Foreman suggested, leaning back to indicate total disengagement.

"Even if the treatment worked," Cameron said slowly, comparing two scans, "the tumours couldn't have shrunk that quickly. Maybe radiology messed up and the scans got swapped."

House nodded. "How can we verify or exclude that possibility?"

Chase took the scans of the patient's head and held them up to the light. "Nah, it's the same patient. Look at the teeth: the chipped left incisor and the two molars with root work."

Foreman held the scans of the spine up to the light in turn, tossing them down in confirmation a moment later.

House released the air in his mouth with a plop. "Okay, so it's the same patient. Any other ideas?"

Chase pushed the scans back and forth in front of him like cards in a card trick. "Perhaps," he said cautiously, "there is no logical explanation."

House whirled around and thumped the table with his fist. "There's always an explanation!" he roared. "And I intend to find it."

Foreman sighed. "House, how about concentrating on the patient who's dying instead of the one who's gonna live? She can wait; our patient can't."

"He's right, House," Cameron said. "Let's be happy that Wilson managed to save this woman. Now about Bradley: are there any new symptoms?"

* * *

Wilson returned to work a day later, pale but with no other signs of the flu or any other ailment. When House quizzed him about his patient's meteoric recovery he threw his hands up defensively.

"House, I have no idea why she went into remission. It's just one of those things that happen when you're dealing with cancer. But I'm not about to complain: it's rare enough that my patients manage to thumb their noses at death."

"And your collapse? Julie said —"

"Julie," Wilson said carefully, "ascribes a lot of my failings to my profession because it spares her the bother of looking too closely at our relationship."

"You're saying you crashed because of your _marriage_?" House enquired, not knowing whether to be amused or seriously concerned about Wilson's mental health.

"I had a weak spell because I worked too hard and slept too little in the days before Gillian went into remission."

"And that had nothing to do with her cancer and everything with the state of your marriage," House said skeptically.

"Of course it had something to do with Gillian; I spent hours at her bedside making sure she was comfortable and —"

"And holding her hand."

"And holding her hand," Wilson confirmed. "I do it because I want to, not because my job obliges me to. Perhaps the hours in Gillian's room drained me, but if she'd died and I hadn't been there, I'd have been in a worse state. But Julie doesn't want to see that I'm not the nine-to-five guy she thought she'd married. She blames it on the job when it's all me."

It was rare that Wilson talked about his marriage. Normally House's insights into his friend's matrimonial problems were restricted to what he could observe or deduce, so he was pleasantly surprised to be the recipient of one of Wilson's rare confidences. (It only struck him much, much later that Wilson had said very little about his patient's surprising recovery.)

Unfortunately (or predictably, as Foreman would say), before House had a chance to follow up on Wilson's miraculously cured patient, his own patient took a turn for the worse. The next month was spent in a flurry of tests, scans, treatment options, searches for donor organs, organ transplants, consultations with the hospital's lawyers, court appearances, and those many unpleasantnesses that occur when one supersedes a patient's wishes to save his life instead of letting him die of his own stupidity. The Case of the Inexplicable Remission still nagged at House occasionally, but not with immediate urgency. Since Wilson appeared normal again and his own patients took up his attention, he let the matter slide.


	3. Chapter 3

The next time it happened, Julie wasn't around any more to shield Wilson from House's eyes. Besides, he'd been keeping a close eye on Wilson whenever one of his patients lay dying. If a patient's recovery knocked Wilson over, who knew what the next death would do to him!

Old Mr Truro died, as did Jennifer McCray, with little to catch House's attention. Wilson swung by their rooms whenever he had a free minute, he monitored their palliative treatment, he made sure they were as comfortable as was possible under the circumstances. But he didn't spend day and night at their bedsides nor did he fall apart when they died. He was quiet and thoughtful for a day or so, and then he returned to his normal routine. House, reassured, reverted to ignoring Wilson's work as much as possible.

Then one morning in May, little Leroy Carter was admitted, wheezing and with his oxygen saturation level way below what paediatric textbooks recommended for growing children. Leroy had been suffering from leukaemia, but had been released two years earlier with his cancer in remission. Now the cancer was back with a vengeance: it was simpler to list the organs that weren't affected than the ones that were.

Wilson went into what House termed 'denial mode': he ordered chemo and radiation, he did PET scans and X-rays, he supervised everything from blood tests to potential donor searches.

House visited Cuddy. "You've got to stop him. The kid is as good as dead."

"We don't know that," Cuddy said.

House tossed the latest scans onto her desk.

"Okay, we do know that," Cuddy conceded after she'd looked at them. "But . . . he's Wilson. That's what he does. Isn't that what you do, invest in your patients?"

"That's because I can save them. He can't save this boy. He's wasting his medical know-how and his expertise."

"It's his call. As long as he doesn't do anything that's illegal, he can care as much as he likes." Resting her chin on her hand she gazed up at him. "Are you worried he won't have enough caring left for you if he 'wastes' it on this boy, House? You needn't be."

So much for help from that quarter.

House returned to hovering in the background. He sneaked through paediatric oncology at night to spy on Wilson sitting at Leroy's bedside, he had a link to Leroy's patient file on his desktop, he bribed the nurses on Leroy's ward to inform him whenever there was any development.

One evening the telephone on his desk rang.

"Dr House? It's Nurse Janice from paediatric oncology. You wanted to be kept updated on lil' Leroy here." (Long, dramatic pause.) "We-ell, ah think you can stop worryin'. He's all better now; oxygen sat level's lookin' good, white blood count's back to normal, no sign of any tumours anywhere . . . Dr House, you still there?"

Tinkle, thump, crash! Despite the wall separating Wilson's office from the conference room, House could picture the lamp tumbling off the desk, the chair tipping over backwards, and then something (shelves?) falling down in slow motion. He dropped the phone and grabbed his cane, noting out of the corner of his eye that his team had risen too and were staring in dismay towards Wilson's office.

It wasn't quite as bad as his mind had visualised in the few seconds it had taken him to get to Wilson's office. Wilson must have collapsed across his desk from the visitors' side, causing the lamp and a few other objects to slide off before the desk itself pitched forward with Wilson on top of it. He'd crashed into the shelves, but the shelves themselves had stood firm, merely showering Wilson with assorted trophies and stuffed toys. It could have been a lot worse.

With Foreman's help he pulled Wilson out of the rubble. Wilson moaned.

"Okay, he's breathing," Cameron said, "but we should get scans to make sure . . ."

"Put him on the couch!" House ordered. He was fairly sure that Wilson wouldn't appreciate being wheeled through the hospital on a gurney. There'd be quite enough rumours when the news leaked that his office was trashed.

Wilson opened his eyes before they'd gotten him properly settled. "What . . .?"

When he struggled to sit up, House pushed him back again. "You collapsed."

He waved an irritated hand at Foreman. "Get a wheelchair. But be discreet. Chase, get water in a cup with a straw. Cameron, bring my car round the back." He tossed her the keys.

Once the room had emptied, he turned back to Wilson. "So, what's this about?"

Wilson draped an arm over his eyes. "Can we talk about it some other time? I feel like crap."

"Next time, you may not be so lucky as to collapse in a hospital. You might be driving along the freeway or —"

Wilson interrupted House with more vigour than House had thought him capable of. "I'm not so stupid as to drive when I'm like this. I never leave the hospital until I'm sure . . ."

"Sure of what? What is this, anyway?"

"Overworked, too little sleep, irregular meals," Wilson mumbled.

House picked a paperweight off the floor and tossed it up in the air, his eyes focused on the branch of a tree that he could see through the balcony door. "Your patient recovers; you crash." He let the paperweight drop to the floor. It gave a satisfying thunk. "Not once, but twice. If Julie is to be believed, then more than twice. Why?"

Wilson struggled into a half-seated position. "How do you feel when you solve a particularly tough case?"

"Exhilarated," House answered without hesitation.

"And then, once the exhilaration wears off?"

House was silent.

Wilson smiled wearily. "Exactly! I skip the exhilaration and go straight to exhaustion. Take me home."

"You're in no position to —"

"I'll be fine," Wilson insisted. "Twenty-four hours, give or take, and I'll be right as rain."

It was more like forty-eight hours, most of them spent on House's couch while House tried to be caring but grew more and more irritated. It wasn't just that Wilson, who was supposed to be the fit one in their relationship, was now ailing and in need of assistance. It was also that it didn't feel . . . right.

Something was off, and he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

On the second day Wilson said he'd be fine by himself and House should get back to PPTH and work before Cuddy descended on them breathing hellfire and brimstone. So House did just that — except for the work part. Instead, he immersed himself in research.

He swung by Wilson's assistant. "Do you remember when Dr Wilson last took a personal day?"

The assistant wrinkled his forehead. "November?"

That was the one House remembered too. "And before that?"

"I'm not HR, you know."

HR — of course! The paper pushers there weren't inclined to be helpful, so House bargained with Cuddy: eight hours of clinic duty in return for a list of Wilson's personal days. (Both of them knew his team would do the hours.) There was no pattern to the dates that House could discern. Sometimes a year would pass between two personal days, once there'd barely been six weeks between them.

"How come I never noticed him taking personal days?"

Cuddy shrugged. "I didn't notice either. It's not like he's been taking an exorbitant number. Compared to other colleagues he makes modest use of the days at his disposal, and his department runs smoothly regardless. That isn't something I can say of _other_ departments." After giving him a very pointed look, she returned to the report she was writing.

Armed with the list House took the elevator down to the archive.

"Patients being treated by Dr James Evan Wilson on the following dates," he said, dumping the paper on the clerk's desk.

"I . . . don't even know how to run a search for that," the woman said, looking down at the list as though it was contaminated.

"What do they pay you for?" House groused.

"To search for patients by name or date of birth. Feel free to do your own search," she snapped, vacating her chair at the computer.

It took him a while, but by midnight he had seven patients who had gone into remission around the dates of Wilson's personal days.

"We have seven patients?" Cameron asked the next morning when she entered the conference room.

Chase walked past the seven whiteboards that House had bribed the janitor to bring there from all over the hospital, frowning as he read symptoms and status reports. "They all have — cancer."

"Clever boy; you can read," House mocked.

"House, none of them is our patient. They're all Wilson's problem. And they're all in remission. Why are we bothering with them?" Foreman asked with the weary air of someone who knew that he was fighting against windmills.

"Maybe Wilson asked for a consult," Cameron surmised.

"On patients who are in remission? Not likely."

House ignored them. "What do they have in common other than that they had cancer?" he asked.

Foreman shrugged. "Nothing. Different ages, races, gender, cancers, symptoms, treatments, you-name-it. Can we get back to _our_ patient?"

House assumed that the question was rhetorical. "No sudden turns for the worse, no history of standard treatment failing, no anomalies?"

Foreman, his interest finally piqued, pulled a few files towards himself. "Okay, two of these didn't respond to initial treatment at all, and they all had exceedingly aggressive tumours."

"Okay, aggressive tumours," House said, writing in big letters so that the two words ran across all whiteboards like a banner.

"Four of them were younger than twenty," Chase suddenly said.

"The other three weren't," Cameron pointed out. "Not a common factor."

"But a significant aberration. That's over fifty percent of the cases we're considering here, which is way more than the occurrence of cancer patients in that age group justifies."

House shifted the whiteboards so that the patients were lined up according to age. "Any age patterns among the adults?"

"No. . . . They're all married. . . No, they aren't. That one isn't."

"Single dad with two kids."

" _All_ of them have family," Foreman said. "Brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, kids, partners. What does that prove, that family protects against cancer?"

"Obviously not; they've all gotten cancer. Except . . ." House paused, deep in thought. The connecting factor was on the edge of his field of vision, but every time he turned his head, it eluded him "Anything in common when they went into remission? Or uncommon about the way they went into remission?"

"Other than the last patient, no," Cameron said. "His recovery is unusual, but the others improved as a result of treatment. I can't see any pattern in the treatment, though. It's all highly individual."

"None of the others were classified as terminal before remission?" House asked.

Cameron leafed through a file, and then through another one. "No," she said finally. "But I'd have been surprised if they were. One patient who recovers from what was originally labelled a terminal outcome is a fluke; seven would be bad medicine. And Wilson is a good doctor."

"That can't be. Give me the file of that woman, the second-last patient."

Cameron pushed the file across the table. House sat down and took out his reading glasses. Gillian's file was comfortingly familiar — except for the last page. Instead of documenting the rapid deterioration of her condition from the time she was admitted to the hospital, it showed steady values, a gradual response to treatment, and long-term tumour shrinkage. It was complete and utter humbug.

The entire page had been neatly documented and signed off by — Wilson.

"Gimme the other files!" House ordered.

It was the same in each and every case. The last page of every single file showed the patient's slow improvement under treatment. And invariably every entry on the last page had been signed off by Wilson, while previous entries had been signed off by assorted nurses, doctors on duty, radiology staff, etc. The only exception was the most recent file, Leroy Carter's.

House stared at the seven files, his mind buzzing.

"Okay, fun and games are over!" he said, standing up and scooping up the files before his team realised what had piqued his interest. "Back to _our_ patient. When's the last time anyone checked on him?"

His fellows looked at him blankly.

He waved his cane at the door of the conference room. "Run along and check whether he's still alive. Wouldn't it be embarrassing if he died while you wasted your time on other departments' patients?"

His next stop of the day was the oncology ward. He leaned on the nurses' desk, his arms propped on the files he'd brought from the archive. "The dean sent me to you," he said giving the nurse his most winning smile.

She sighed. "Dr House! What have I done to deserve Dr Cuddy's ire?"

"Seems that you guys are a beacon in the darkness as far as documentation of patient care is concerned."

"We just do our jobs," the nurse said virtuously.

"The dean suggested that I do mine by following your shining example. She furthermore indicated that my clinic hours would rise exponentially if my patient files didn't show signs of improvement soon. So, . . ."

He pulled out his reading glasses, gave the nurse a half-beseeching, half-flirtatious look over them, and opened the top file. "Could you explain to me how you ensure that patient files are updated completely and consistently, regardless of who is staffing the ward? See, we have an issue with that: my fellows think the nurses are writing everything down, while the nurses believe my fellows are documenting everything in the patient file."

"It's quite simple, really. Whoever does anything, no matter what it is, notes it down. If more than one person is helping, then the senior-most staff member is automatically responsible. We've got an extra column here for . . ."

House zoned out, only returning to the present when the nurse finished with, "Did you get that?"

"Yeah, okay, that isn't rocket science. Now when I look at this page, does that mean that Dr Wilson personally supervised each and every procedure over a time period of seventy-two hours?"

"Let me see? Well, that's odd!" The nurse frowned down at the file that House had pushed under her nose. "Of course he couldn't have done that. Someone else must have . . ."

"But you just said —"

"I know what I said!" She turned the pages of the file. "Do you have any others?"

House obligingly pushed the other files towards her.

Her eyes lit up when she saw the third file. "Oh, I remember that girl! She nearly died, but then she . . . Oh!"

"What?" House asked, leaning forward.

"I'm sure I was on duty the last week she was here. And I _know_ that I —" She stopped short and shook her head, giving a small, fake laugh, before continuing in a determined tone. "Well, I must be mistaken. Maybe I wasn't on duty after all. Or I'm thinking of a different patient. You know how it is at our age: your memory is as full of holes as a Swiss cheese."

"Speak for yourself," House said, straightening and taking the files from her. Wilson, the most conscientious soul at the hospital (Cameron excepted) had altered six patient files and would doubtless edit the seventh one once he recovered from his bout of weakness and got around to it.

His preferred source of inspiration also being the source of his present problems, House had to go elsewhere for input. Lying on Cuddy's couch and twirling his cane he asked, "Why would a doctor manipulate patient files?"

"One, to cover up malpractice. Two, to hide carelessness. And I've heard of files being manipulated in order to bump the patient up on the transplant list — I'm _not_ thinking of any specific employee of mine here." She turned her screen away so she could look at him. "Is there anything I should know?"

"What if the patients walked out of here cured?"

"Then I guess you can strike malpractice and carelessness. Are you sure the patients were really sick when they entered the hospital? If not, we're probably talking about billing irregularities — someone's pretending to cure healthy patients in order to spruce up their budget."

"Nah, the patients were definitely sick."

"Then I'd say someone's using patients as guinea pigs for non-FDA approved drugs. Again, I'm _not_ thinking of any specific employee of mine." Cuddy's glare was very suspicious indeed.

"Non-FDA approved . . . Gotta go!" House jumped up and headed for home.


	4. Chapter 4

"You," House said, pointing his cane at Wilson after dropping his backpack near the kitchen doorway, "are healing patients."

Wilson looked up from chopping onions, his mouth twitching in amusement. "That's what I understood I was being paid to do, so — yes. Guilty as charged. Forgive me for doing my job."

"Wrong! You get paid to _treat_ your patients. The _treatment_ — medication, radiation, surgery — is supposed to heal them, not you."

Wilson threw down the knife. "House, I don't even know what you're getting at. I treat my patients according to the latest guidelines. Every now and then I go out on a limb and try a somewhat more aggressive treatment than usual or a slightly unorthodox combination, but that's about it. It isn't anything obscure or mystic, and it sure as hell isn't illegal."

House eyed him speculatively. "So you're saying you cured Leroy Carter via conventional methods."

"As you were so quick to point out, _I_ didn't cure him. He recovered. Whether that's due to the treatment or a happy coincidence is up for debate, given that till now treatment didn't even scratch the surface." Picking up the knife again, he waggled it at House. "I get that 'coincidence' is a swear word in your universe, but that's all I can offer. Oh yes, his grandmother prayed for him three times a day, if that's more to your taste. But my methods were above board and will stand the scrutiny of any investigation."

"I'm not talking about the treatment as documented in the files. I'm talking about your personal involvement. You're doing something. I don't know what you're up to, but when all other treatment fails —"

"You've caught me, House. I go in there, wave my magic wand, utter, ' _Interfice tumores!_ ' and the patient is healed." Wilson waved his knife foppishly before returning to his onion massacre.

House picked up a lemon and squeezed it suggestively. "The patient leeches you and survives, while you are drained."

"Fascinating. You could write a paper on your theory. . . . Leave that lemon alone if you value your dinner."

House put down the lemon. He reached back with his cane to pull his backpack towards himself. From it he extracted Carter's patient file and slapped it onto the counter. "When were you going to replace the last page?"

"Sorry?"

"Like you did with Gillian Dupont, Chandra Ramanujan, Sonny Wills, and others. I _know_ what Gillian's file looked like before you 'cleansed' it, and I've found a nurse who can testify that Ramanujan's patient file has undergone a drastic change since she last saw it."

Wilson stared at the files without moving. Finally he met House's stare. "You're basing your crazy theory that I'm some kind of I-don't-know —"

"Miracle worker," House inserted.

Wilson looked at him with distaste. "'Miracle worker', then. You're basing your theory on the fact that I had to replace a few messy pages with neater, more legible versions."

"Puh-lease! Your nurse practically fainted when she saw the bowdlerised files. There's no legal justification whatsoever for file retconning, so whatever you're hiding has to be bigger than your fear of getting caught. " House rapped the files with his knuckles. "All other doctors advertise their expertise, especially if it happens to be curing cancer. You must be the only doctor trying to _hide_ the fact that he can cure terminally ill patients. Now why would you do that instead of giving hope to many?"

"I don't . . . I can't . . ."

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks. Tell you what, I've re-written your bio data for the hospital website." House pulled out his laptop, flipped the lid open, and read aloud, "'Dr Wilson has been highly successful in treating patients with a poor prognosis, especially the young. If your child has been diagnosed with a stage III or stage IV cancer, do not hesitate to contact Dr Wilson directly.' I'm sure you'll get ten to twenty phone calls a day, plus emails. Not to mention parents beleaguering your office, tugging at your sleeves every time you pass, pushing their children's files under your door. What'll you do, open up a waiting list? Or are there special criteria that qualify a patient for treatment with your Healing Hands?"

He poised his index finger an inch above the enter key. "One click, and then — ping! — it's uploaded to the hospital website."

"House, no!"

"No?" House said, circling his finger above the key.

Wilson leaned on the kitchen counter with both hands. "It's complicated, okay?" he said fiercely, looking down at the chopped onions.

"I can clear my busy schedule to accommodate your break-through in cancer treatment."

Wilson looked up, his eyes shiny-bright. (House opted to blame the onions.) "It's no break-through. It's . . . Oh, fuck!" He brushed past House, and for a moment House feared that he was making a run for it. But a moment later he heard the swoosh-thump of Wilson dropping onto the couch.

House got two cans of beer from the fridge, and then joined Wilson in the living room. Wilson was curled up on the couch, his eyes closed and the blanket drawn up to his chin. House opened one of the cans and placed it on the coffee table next to Wilson's head. Opening his eyes, Wilson shook his head wearily.

"Not for me," he said.

So whatever it was, it was worse than a divorce. House settled down in an armchair and waited.

"It started with Danny," Wilson finally said, turning onto his back. "Over the years I'd gotten adept at calming him whenever he had a bad turn, but I'd never attached significance to the fact that I could do it while the others couldn't. Not until my last year in high school when he got worse. I noticed how much it drained me to get him back into sync, but at the time I assumed it was the psychological stress of dealing with a sick brother.

"Then, in the middle of my first year at college, my parents called me. They said they couldn't cope with Danny any longer and that he'd have to be institutionalised. I rushed home, and — they had a point. He was completely out of control. So, I . . . calmed him again. It took hours of sitting with him, holding him, talking to him, comforting him. I sort of 'walked' him through his delusions until he came out on the other side. Afterwards I was exhausted to the bone; I collapsed on my bed.

"That night I woke up to voices. There were people at my bedside, people I knew but who had no business to be there, calling me names and telling me that I was a loser. Later, there were dragons, _real_ dragons. I could reach out and touch them. And . . . other stuff."

"It went on for days. I thought I was going mad. As it was, I nearly dropped out of college. And I realised that I couldn't help Danny without endangering myself. I didn't return home anymore regardless of my parents' pleas. I'd phone Danny and try to talk him through it, but I couldn't face him again, knowing that I'd have to refuse him what he needed. It was either him or me. I chose myself."

Wilson fell silent for so long that House finally cleared his throat. Wilson opened his eyes, but only to stare at the ceiling. He hadn't looked at House once since starting his tale.

"What about your cancer patients?" House asked.

Wilson became smaller, more vulnerable, if that was possible at all. "I had no idea I could do that with other diseases too, diseases that weren't of the mind, or with people who weren't close to me. I'd assumed that it was the bond between Danny and me that was causing the problem.

"Then, about eight years ago I had a young patient with terminal cancer. He wasn't my first terminal patient, nor was he the first kid, but — he reminded me of Danny. So I spent a lot of time with him. And I don't need you to tell me that my actions were fuelled by guilt; I'm quite capable of figuring that out by myself. When he started slipping away, I automatically did what I'd been doing with Danny, the walking-him-through-it thing. I _assumed_ that I was easing his departure from this world; instead he came out alive on the other side, and I — well, you've seen what it does to me."

"So what do you do?"

Wilson turned his head to look at House. "I have no idea. I can only tell you what it feels like, and you've seen the effects. I can't reproduce it on command; I can only do it if I feel a strong pull, a sort of inner urge."

"What triggers the urge?"

"House, this isn't an exact science! In fact, it isn't science at all. I can't tell you why some patients trigger me while others don't."

House mentally let the files parade along the catwalk of his mind. "Young patients, patients with people who love them, patients who are 'worthy'," he noted. "You don't do it for the elderly or for miserable jerks."

Wilson looked at House pointedly. "I only do it for the dying. The price is too high."

"A day in bed?"

Wilson sat up abruptly and cast the blanket off. "It's more than that, okay? Would _you_ be prepared to lose your mind?"

House looked down. When he looked up again, Wilson had disappeared into the bathroom. House went into the kitchen and surveyed the chopped onions. He could hear Wilson letting water into the bathtub. House swept the onions into the trash and took his takeout flyers out of the drawer.


	5. Chapter 5

They didn't talk about it again. It was the proverbial elephant in the middle of the living room: House figured that he was best served by pretending it didn't exist, because accepting its existence would mean admitting that there was an uncontrollable element to medicine, something way beyond what he did in diagnostics. Diagnostics was all about finding patterns and interpreting them. Wilson was altering those patterns. He was adding an element of randomness to a discipline that had given House stability and orientation throughout his adulthood.

Nevertheless, he kept a close eye on Wilson whenever a 'trigger' patient was admitted, while Wilson stopped trying to hide what was happening from House. House's feelings whenever Wilson exerted his gift were ambivalent: he wanted a ring seat so he could study the phenomenon, but try as he might, he could find no explanation for Wilson's powers except ones that featured the supernatural. It was an unacceptable state of affairs and the less often it happened, the easier it was for House to suppress his discomfort. At times it took all his will power to stop himself from grabbing Wilson and dragging him away from a patient who just might trigger him.

The occurrences were rare, however, and the intervals appeared to increase. And then House was caught up in his own irrational drama and lost track of what was happening in Wilson's life. When he returned from prison, there was no overt evidence that Wilson was still healing patients. This state of affairs continued for so long that House was inclined to believe that Wilson had given it up altogether. Or maybe it had all been a Vicodin-induced hallucination. House really wasn't sure.

And then Wilson said, "I have cancer." And refused treatment, more or less.

"We had _one_ shot at the tumour, Wilson. We can give it another try. You of all people know that cancer isn't a death sentence."

Wilson stood up and turned to examine the assortment of patient gifts on his shelves. He picked up a stuffed monkey. House vaguely remembered the donor, a young girl. "House, remember when I told you that there was a price? A price that I have to pay every time I . . . you know?"

House didn't get it at first. It had been years ago, after all. Besides, he didn't _want_ to get it. When he did get it he said, "You said it made you hallucinate and could possibly drive you over the edge — whatever it was that happened when you tried to help Danny."

"Yes, because Danny is schizophrenic. All the others had cancer." Wilson paused to let his words sink in. "Now _I_ have cancer. I'm surprised it took so long."

"You said," House reiterated, "that you didn't cure everyone because you didn't want to _lose_ _your_ _mind_."

"I lied," Wilson said without blinking. "I'm told everyone does. If I'd told you that I'd get cancer in the long run, would you have let me continue?"

"No!" House shouted, frustrated.

"See? . . . It's the price we pay. Saving lives comes at a price, House. It's pay-day for me."

"You can't be sure that there's a connection. It could be a coincidence. Lots of people get cancer."

"That's why we did home chemo: to exclude the possibility that it's an unconnected occurrence. It isn't." Wilson shifted a few things on his desk to and fro, probably to avoid having to meet House's angry eyes. "By my count it's been fifteen people, all with extremely aggressive tumours. From my experience with Danny's schizophrenia I can tell you that when it hits, it hits _bad_. I don't stand a chance, so I'm not even trying."

"You can't . . ." House yelled.

But Wilson could and he did.

House shot up in an abandoned warehouse and had strange visions of people from his past telling him what his life was worth, what he should do (or not, as the case was), and what an asshole he was. As such, he wasn't particularly surprised when Wilson turned up too.

"Go away," House muttered. "You're abandoning me, so don't bother to haunt me here."

"Who's abandoning whom?" Wilson asked, sitting down on an upturned crate after dusting it off. "You're offing yourself to spite me."

"You could have stopped 'it' long ago, then you wouldn't have cancer now," House pointed out. "You'd already decided to abandon me long before your tumour started growing."

"Don't be a hypocrite, House," Wilson said. "You and I, we're birds of a feather."

"I don't cure cancer kids at the expense of my health. And if I go all in every now and then, it's because I know it'll work out somehow. I don't go into patient treatment with the intention of sacrificing a part of myself. I don't donate bits of my body and I certainly don't put a 'sell by' stamp on my life."

"When was the last time you diagnosed a patient?" Wilson asked with his most annoying I'm-gonna-prove-something-and-you-won't-like-it expression.

"I diagnose a patient every week."

Wilson's tone was smug. "Your fellows are diagnosing your patients, not you. It's been them for quite some time now. _You_ haven't diagnosed anyone in ages."

House felt heavy dread in the pit of his stomach. "What are you trying to say?"

Wilson finally dropped his placid demeanour. His eyes flashed. "Don't be dense. You've lost your ability, like I've lost my health. You've expended it saving lives, just like me. You'll never save another life."

House could feel panic rise in him, clawing at his chest, taking his breath away. "No," he said wildly. "You're wrong. I've been distracted recently, but . . . but I'm not like _you_. Diagnostics isn't mumbo-jumbo and laying on of hands."

"Suit yourself," Wilson said. "But you know I'm telling the truth, because I'm not real. This is your subconscious telling you what you've known all along. You've saved all those people — well, maybe not all of them, but certainly a fair number — by compromising your mental abilities. Healing patients the way we do comes at a price; I told you that long ago. It wasn't just a piece of information; it was a warning, one that you chose to ignore. Your presence here has nothing whatsoever to do with my dying." He leaned forward and pointed a finger at House. "You're here now because you can't face life without your gift. You've lost your mojo, and it's killing you as surely as cancer is killing me."

"You're saying I should lie down here and die," House said slowly, "because I'm useless now."

"I'm not telling you to do anything. I'm saying that I'll understand if that's your choice, because it's what I've chosen."

House sat up, his eyes narrowed. "You're lying. It's what you always do."

"You know I'm not lying."

"Not about that. But you _are_ lying about me being useless."

"I said nothing of the sort. _You_ said that. And even if I'd said it, it would still have been you, because I'm not me, I'm your subconscious."

"But you implied it. And now you're trying to confuse me." House was decidedly sick of his subconscious and he was getting uncomfortably hot. "You want me to die here so that . . . so that I don't have to watch you die. No, wait, _I_ want to die here so that I don't have to watch you die. Which I don't have to do anyway, because if I leave this warehouse I go to jail and don't watch you die either. Unless . . ."

He broke off and scrambled to his feet as fast as he could. His leg, sore from lying on the hard floor, protested.

Wilson rose too, dusting off the back of his pants. "We're leaving?" he asked.

"Yep," House answered briefly, feeling around for his cane. "It isn't just about saving lives."

"That's rich, coming from you."

"It's never too late to change."

Wilson trailed behind him. "I thought you said people don't change."

House wheeled round to face him. "You're supposed to be my conscience, my better half, so to say. You're crap at it. I prefer the real thing to the hallucination."

Wilson held up his hands placatingly. "Fine, I'll just stay here. I hope you know what you're doing!"

"So do I," House muttered as he hunted around for the back exit.

The real Wilson didn't argue much with House's decision to reappear in his life as a nominally dead man. He did, however, point out that House would never practice medicine again (among other objections that didn't really count).

House locked eyes with Wilson.

"I'm dead, Wilson," he said. "Like you. Well, not quite like you — I haven't got cancer, but . . ." He was rambling, hoping he wouldn't have to spell it out.

He saw confusion in Wilson's gaze, then slow realisation, sadness, and finally something akin to relief. And acceptance.

Before Wilson had a chance to get maudlin, he asked, "How do you want to spend our last five months?"

 **~ The End ~**

* * *

Many thanks to menolly_au, who never fails to encourage and motivate me!


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